Sculpture

SCULPTURE

THE present article is confined to the sculpture of the Middle Ages and modern times; classical sculpture has been already treated of under Archaeology (Classical), vol. ii. p. 343 sq., and in the articles on the several individual artists.

In the 4th century a.d., under the rule of Constantine’s successors, the plastic arts in the Roman world reached the lowest point of degradation to which they ever fell. Coarse in workmanship, intensely feeble in design, and utterly without expression or life, the pagan sculpture of that time is merely a dull and ignorant imitation of the work of previous centuries. The old faith was dead, and the art which had sprung from it died with it. In the same century a large amount of sculpture was produced by Christian workmen, which, though it reached no very high standard of merit, was at least far superior to the pagan work. Although it shows no increase of technical skill or knowledge of the human form, yet the mere fact that it was inspired and its subjects supplied by a real living faith was quite sufficient to give it - a vigour and a dramatic force which raise it aesthetically far above the expiring efforts of pagan ism. Fig. I shows a very fine Christian relief of the 4th century, with a noble figure of an archangel holding an orb and a sceptre. It is a leaf from an ivory consular diptych, inscribed at the top ΔEXOY ΠΑΡΟΝΤΑ KAI MAΘWN ΤΗΝ ΑΙΤΙΑΝ, “Receive these presents and having learnt the specimens of this early Christian sculpture. In general design they are close copies of pagan tombs, and are richly decorated outside with reliefs. The subjects of these are usually scenes from the Old and New Testaments. From the former those subjects were selected which were supposed to have some typical reference to the life of Christ: the Meeting of Abraham and Melchisedec, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Daniel among the Lions, Jonah and the Whale, are those which most frequently occur. Among the New Testament scenes no representations occur of Christ’s sufferings; the subjects chosen illustrate His power and beneficence: the Sermon on the Mount, the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, and many of His miracles are frequently repeated. The Vatican and Lateran museums are rich in examples of this sort. One of the finest in the former collection was taken from the crypt of the old basilica of St Peter; it contained the body of a certain Junius Bassus, and dates from the year 359. Many other similar sarcophagi were made in the provinces of Rome, especially Gaul; and fine specimens exist in the museums of Arles, Marseilles, and Aix; those found in Britain are of very inferior workmanship.

In the 5th century other plastic works similar in style were still produced in Italy, especially reliefs in ivory (to a certain extent imitations of the later consular diptychs), which were used to decorate episcopal thrones or the bindings of MSS. of the Gospels. The so-called chair of St Peter, still preserved (though hidden from sight) in his great basilica, is the finest example of the former class; of less purely classical style, dating from about 550, is the ivory throne of Bishop Maximianus in Ravenna cathedral (see fig. 2). Another very remarkable work of the 5th century is the series of small panel reliefs on the doors of S. Sabina on the Aventine Hill at Rome. They are scenes from Bible history carved in wood, and in them much of the old classic style survives.

In the 6th century, under the Byzantine influence of Justinian, a new class of decorative sculpture was produced, especially at Ravenna. Subject reliefs do not often occur, but large slabs of marble, forming screens, altars, pulpits, and the like, were ornamented in a very skilful and original way with low reliefs of graceful vine-plants, with peacocks and other birds drinking out of chalices, all treated in a very able and highly decorative manner (see fig. 3 and the upper band of fig. 2). Byzantium, however, in the main, became the birthplace and seat of all the mediaeval arts soon after the transference thither of the headquarters of the empire. The plastic arts of Byzantium were for a while dominated by the survival of the dull classic art of the extreme decadence, but soon fresh life and vigour of conception were gained by a people who were not without the germinating seeds of a new aesthetic development. The bronze statue of St Peter in his Roman basilica is an early work which shows some promise of what was to come in the far-off future; though classical in its main lines and stiff in treatment, it possesses a simple dignity and force which were far beyond the powers of any mere copyist of classic sculpture. Very early in the 5th or 6th century a school of decorative sculpture arose at Byzantium which produced work, such as carved foliage on capitals and bands of ornament, possessed of the very highest decorative power and executed with unrivalled spirit and vigour. The early Byzantine treatment of the acanthus or thistle, as seen in the capitals of S. Sophia at Constantinople, the Golden Gate at Jerusalem, and many other buildings in the East, has never since been surpassed in any purely decorative sculpture; and it is interesting to note how it grew out of the dull and lifeless ornamentation which covers the degraded Corinthian capital used so largely in Roman buildings of the time of Constantine and his sons. It was, however, especially in the production of Metal-work (q.v.) that the early Byzantines were so famous, and this notably in the manipulation of the precious metals, which were then used in the most lavish way to decorate and furnish the great churches of the empire. This extended use of gold and silver strongly influenced their sculpture, even when the material was marble or bronze, and caused an amount of delicate surface-ornament to be used which was sometimes injurious to the breadth and simplicity of their reliefs. For many centuries the art of Byzantium, at least in its higher forms, made little or no progress, mainly owing to the tyrannical influence of the church and its growing suspicion of anything like sensual beauty. A large party in the Eastern Church decided that all representations of Christ must be “without form or comeliness,” and that it was impious to carve or paint Him with any of the beauty and nobility of the pagan gods. Moreover, the artists of Byzantium were fettered by the strictest rules as to the proper way in which to portray each sacred figure: every saint had to be represented in a certain attitude, with one fixed cast of face and arrangement of drapery, and even in certain definitely prescribed colours. No deviation from these rules was permitted, and thus stereotyped patterns were created and followed in the most rigid and conventional manner. Hence in Byzantine art from the 6th to the 12th century a miniature painting in an illuminated MS. looks like a reduced copy of a colossal glass mosaic; and no design had much special relation to the material it was to be executed in: it was much the same whether it was intended to be a large relief sculptured in stone or a minute piece of silver-work for the back of a textus.

Till about the 12th century, and in some places much later, the art of Byzantium dominated that of the whole Christian world in a very remarkable way. From Russia to Ireland and from Norway to Spain any given work of art in one of the countries of Europe might almost equally well have been designed in any other. Little or no local peculiarities can be detected, except of course in the methods of execution, and even these were wonderfully similar everywhere. The dogmatic unity of the Catholic Church and its great monastic system, with constant interchange of monkish craftsmen between one country and another, were the chief causes of this widespread monotony of style. An additional reason was the unrivalled technical skill of the early Byzantines, which made their city widely resorted to by the artist-craftsmen of all Europe,—the great school for learning any branch of the arts.

The extensive use of the precious metals for the chief works of plastic art in this early period is one of the reasons why so few examples still remain,—their great intrinsic value naturally causing their destruction. One of the most important existing examples, dating from the 8th century, is a series of colossal wall reliefs executed in hard stucco in the church of Cividale (Friuli) not far from Trieste. These represent rows of female saints bearing jewelled crosses, crowns, and wreaths, and closely resembling in costume, attitude, and arrangement the gift-bearing mosaic figures of Theodora and her ladies in S. Vitale at Ravenna. It is a striking instance of the almost petrified state of Byzantine art that so close a similarity should be possible between works executed at an interval of fully two hundred years. Some very interesting small plaques of ivory in the library of St Gall show a still later survival of early forms. The central relief is a figure of Christ in Majesty, and closely resembles those in the colossal apse mosaic of S. Apollinare in Classe and other churches of Ravenna; while the figures below the Christ are survivals of a still older time, dating back from the best eras of classic art. A river-god is represented as an old man holding an urn, from which a stream issues, and a reclining female figure with an infant and a cornucopia is the old Roman Tellus or Earth-goddess with her ancient attributes.

It will be convenient to discuss the sculpture of the mediaeval and modern periods under the heads of the chief countries of Europe.

England.— During the Saxon period, when stone buildings were rare and even large cathedrals were built of wood, the plastic arts were mostly confined to the use of gold, silver, and gilt copper. The earliest existing specimens of sculpture in stone are a number of tall churchyard crosses, mostly in the northern provinces and apparently the work of Scandinavian sculptors. One very remarkable example is a tall monolithic cross, cut in sandstone, in the churchyard of Gosforth in Cumberland. It is covered with rudely carved reliefs, small in scale, which are of special interest as showing a transitional state from the worship of Odin to that of Christ. Some of the old Norse symbols and myths sculptured on it occur modified and altered into a semi-Christian form. Though rich in decorative effect and with a graceful outline, this sculptured cross shows a very primitive state of artistic development, as do the other crosses of this class in Cornwall, Ireland, and Scotland, which are mainly ornamented with those ingeniously intricate patterns of interlacing knotwork designed so skilfully by both the early Norse and the Celtic races. They belong to a class of art which is not Christian in its origin, though it was afterwards largely used for Christian purposes, and so is thoroughly national in style, quite free from the usual widespread Byzantine influence. Of special interest from their early date—probably the 11th century —are two large stone reliefs now in Chichester cathedral, which are traditionally said to have come from the pre-Norman church at Selsey. They are thoroughly Byzantine in style, but evidently the work of some very ignorant sculptor; they represent two scenes in the Raising of Lazarus; the figures are stiff, attenuated, and ugly, the pose very awkward, and the drapery of exaggerated Byzantine character, with long thin folds. To represent the eyes pieces of glass or coloured enamel were inserted; the treatment of the hair in long ropelike twists suggests a metal rather than a stone design (see fig. 4).

During the Norman period sculpture of a very rude sort was much used, especially for the tympanum reliefs over the doors of churches. Christ in Majesty, the Harrowing of Hell, and St George and the Dragon occur very frequently. Reliefs of the zodiacal signs were a common decoration of the richly sculptured arches of the 12th century, and are frequently carved with much power. The later Norman sculptured ornaments are very rich and spirited, though the treatment of the human figure is still very weak.

The best-preserved examples of monumental sculpture of the 12th century are a number of effigies of knights-templars in the round Temple church in London. They are laboriously cut in hard Purbeck marble, and much resemble bronze in their treatment; the faces are clumsy, and the whole figures stiff and heavy in modelling; but they are valuable examples of the military costume of the time, the armour being purely chain-mail. Another effigy in the same church cut in stone, once decorated with painting, is a much finer piece of sculpture of about a century later. The head, treated in an ideal way with wavy curls, has much simple beauty, showing a great artistic advance. Another of the most remarkable effigies of this period is that of Robert, duke of Normandy (d. 1134), in Gloucester cathedral, carved with much spirit in oak, and decorated with painting (fig. 5). Most rapid progress in all the arts, especially that of sculpture, was made in England in the second half of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century, largely under the patronage of Henry III., who employed and handsomely rewarded a large number of English artists, and also imported others from Italy and Spain, though these foreigners took only a secondary position among the painters and sculptors of England. The end of the 13th century was in fact the culminating period of English art, and at this time a very high degree of excellence was reached by purely national means, quite equalling and even surpassing the general average of art on the Continent, except perhaps in France. Even Niccola Pisano could not have surpassed the beauty and technical excellence of the two bronze effigies in Westminster Abbey modelled and cast by William Torell, a goldsmith and citizen of London, shortly before the year 1300. These are on the tombs of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor, and, though the tomb itself of the former is an Italian work of the Cosmati school, there is no trace of foreign influence in the figures. At this time portrait effigies had not come into general use, and both figures are treated in an ideal way. The crowned head of Henry III., with noble well-modelled features and crisp wavy curls, resembles the conventional royal head on English coins of this and the following century, while the head of Eleanor is of remarkable, almost classic, beauty, and of great interest as showing the ideal type of the 13th century (see fig. 6).

In both cases the drapery is well conceived in broad sculpturesque folds, graceful and yet simple in treatment. The casting of these figures, which was effected by the cire perdue process, is technically very perfect. The gold employed for the gilding was got from Lucca in the shape of the current florins of that time, which were famed for their purity. Torell was highly paid for this, as well as for two other bronze statues of Queen Eleanor, probably of the same design.

Much of the fine 13th-century sculpture was used to decorate the façades of churches. The grandest example is the west end of Wells cathedral, of about the middle of the century. It is covered with more than 600 figures in the round or in relief, arranged in tiers, and of varying sizes. The tympana of the doorways are filled with reliefs, and above them stand rows of colossal statues of kings and queens, bishops and knights, and saints both male and female, all treated very skilfully with nobly arranged drapery, and graceful heads designed in a thoroughly architectonic way, with due regard to the main lines of the building they are meant to decorate. In this respect the early mediaeval sculptor inherited one of the great merits of the Greeks of the best period: his figures or reliefs form an essential part of the design of the building to which they are affixed, and are treated in a subordinate manner to their architectural surroundings—very different from the sculpture on modern buildings, which usually looks as if it had been stuck up as an afterthought, and frequently by its violent and incongruous lines is rather an impertinent excrescence than an ornament. Peterborough, Lichfield, and Salisbury cathedrals have fine examples of the sculpture of the 13th century: in the chapter-house of the last the spandrels of the wall-arcade are filled with sixty reliefs of subjects from Bible history, all treated with much grace and refinement. To the end of the same century belong the celebrated reliefs of angels in the spandrels of the choir arches at Lincoln, carved in a large massive way with great strength of decorative effect. Other fine reliefs of angels, executed about 1260, exist in the transepts of Westminster Abbey; being high from the ground, they are broadly treated without any high finish in the details.

It may here be well to say a few words on the technical methods employed in the execution of mediaeval sculpture, which in the main were very similar in England, France, and Germany. When bronze was used—in England as a rule only for the effigies of royal persons or the richer nobles—the metal was cast by the delicate cire perdue process, and the whole surface of the figure was then thickly gilded. At Limoges in France a large number of sepulchral effigies were produced, especially between 1300 and 1400, and exported to distant places. These were not cast, but were made of hammered (repoussé) plates of copper, nailed on a wooden core and richly decorated with champlevé enamels in various bright colours. Westminster Abbey possesses a fine example, executed about 1300, in the effigy of William of Valence (d. 1296). The ground on which the figure lies, the shield, the border of the tunic, the pillow, and other parts are decorated with these enamels very minutely treated. The rest of the copper was gilt, and the helmet was surrounded with a coronet set with jewels, which are now missing. One royal effigy of later date at Westminster, that of Henry V. (d. 1422), was formed of beaten silver fixed to an oak core, with the exception of the head, which appears to have been cast. The whole of the silver disappeared in the time of Henry VIII., and nothing now remains but the rough wooden core; hence it is doubtful whether the silver was decorated with enamel or not; it was probably of English workmanship.

In most cases stone was used for all sorts of sculpture, being decorated in a very minute and elaborate way with gold, silver, and colours applied over the whole surface. In order to give additional richness to this colouring the surface of the stone, often even in the case of external sculpture, was covered with a thin skin of gesso or fine plaster mixed with size; on this, while still soft, and over the drapery and other accessories, very delicate and minute patterns were stamped with wooden dies (see Mural Decoration, fig. 17), and upon this the gold and colours were applied; thus the gaudiness and monotony of flat smooth surfaces covered with gilding or bright colours were avoided. In addition to this the borders of drapery and other parts of stone statues were frequently ornamented with crystals and false jewels, or, in a more laborious way, with holes and sinkings filled with polished metallic foil, on which very minute patterns were painted in transparent varnish colours; the whole was then protected from the air by small pieces of transparent glass, carefully shaped to the right size and fixed over the foil in the cavity cut in the stone. It is difficult now to realize the extreme splendour of this gilt, painted, and jewelled sculpture, as no perfect example exists, though in many cases traces remain of all these processes, and show that they were once very widely applied. The architectural surroundings of the figures were treated in the same elaborate way. In the 14th century in England alabaster came into frequent use for monumental sculpture; it too was decorated with gold and colour, though in some cases the whole surface does not appear to have been so treated. In his wide use of coloured decoration, as in other respects, the mediaeval sculptor came far nearer to the ancient Greek than do any modern artists. Even the use of inlay of coloured glass was common at Athens during the 5th century B.C.,—as, for example, in the plait-band of some of the marble bases of the Erechtheum,—and five or six centuries earlier at Tiryns and Mycenae.

Another material much used by mediaeval sculptors was wood, though, from its perishable nature, comparatively few early examples survive; the best specimen is the figure of George de Cantelupe (d. 1273) in Abergavenny church. This was decorated with gesso reliefs, gilt and coloured in the same way as the stone. The tomb of Prince John of Eltham (d. 1334) at Westminster is a very fine example of the early use of alabaster, both for the recumbent effigy and also for a number of small figures of mourners all round the arcading of the tomb. These little figures, well preserved on the side which is protected by the screen, are of very great beauty and are executed with the most delicate minuteness; some of the heads are equal to the best contemporary work of the son and pupils of Niccola Pisano. The tomb once had a high stone canopy of open work—arches, canopies, and pinnacles,—a class of architectural sculpture of which many extremely rich examples exist, as, for instance, the tomb of Edward II. at Gloucester, the De Spencer tomb at Tewkesbury, and, of rather later style, the tomb of Lady Eleanor de Percy at Beverley. This last is remarkable for the great richness and beauty of its sculptured foliage, which is of the finest Decorated period and stands unrivalled by any Continental example.

In England purely decorative carving in stone reached its highest point of excellence about the middle of the 14th century,—rather later, that is, than the best period of figure sculpture. Wood-carving (q.v. ), on the other hand, reached its artistic climax a full century later under the influence of the fully developed Perpendicular style.

The most important effigies of the 14th century are those in gilt bronze of Edward III. (d. 1377) and of Richard II. and his queen (made in 1395), all at Westminster. They are all portraits, but are decidedly inferior to the earlier work of William Torell. The effigies of Richard II. and Anne of Bohemia were the work of Nicolas Broker and Godfred Prest, goldsmith citizens of London. Another fine bronze effigy is at Canterbury on the tomb of the Black Prince (d. 1376); though well cast and with carefully modelled armour, it is treated in a somewhat dull and conventional way. The recumbent stone figure of Lady Arundel, with two angels at her head, in Chichester cathedral is remarkable for its calm peaceful pose and the beauty of the drapery. A very fine but more realistic work is the tomb figure of William of Wykeham (d. 1404) in the cathedral at Winchester. The cathedrals at Rochester, Lichfield, York, Lincoln, Exeter, and many other ecclesiastical buildings in England are rich in examples of 14th-century sculpture, used occasionally with great profusion and richness of effect, but treated in strict subordination to the architectural background.

The finest piece of bronze sculpture of the 15th century is the effigy of Richard Beauchamp (d. 1439) in his family chapel at Warwick,—a noble portrait figure, richly decorated with engraved ornaments. The modelling and casting were done by William Austen of London, and the gilding and engraving by a Netherlands goldsmith who had settled in London, named Bartholomew Lambespring, assisted by several other skilful artists.

At the beginning of the 16th century sculpture in England was entering upon a period of rapid decadence, and to some extent had lost its native individuality. The finest series of statues of this period are those of life-size high up on the walls of Henry VII.’s chapel at Westminster and others over the various minor altars. These ninety-five figures, which represent saints and doctors of the church, vary very much in merit: some show German influence, others that of Italy, while a third class are, as it were, “archaistic” imitations of older English sculpture (see fig. 7). In some cases the heads and general pose are graceful, and the drapery dignified, but in the main they are coarse both in design and in workmanship compared with the better plastic art of the 13th and 14th centuries. This decadence of English sculpture caused Henry VII. to invite the Florentine Torrigiano (1472 ?-1522) to come to England to model and cast the bronze figures for his own magnificent tomb, which still exist in almost perfect preservation. The recumbent effigies of Henry VII. and his queen are fine specimens of Florentine art, well modelled with life-like portrait heads and of very fine technique in the casting. The altar-tomb on which the effigies lie is of black marble, decorated with large medallion reliefs in gilt bronze, each with a pair of saints—the patrons of Henry and Elizabeth of York—of very graceful design. The altar and its large baldacchino and reredos were the work of Torrigiano, but were destroyed during the 17th century. The reredos had a large relief of the Resurrection of Christ executed in painted terra-cotta, as were also a life-sized figure of the dead Christ under the altar-slab and four angels on the top angles of the baldacchino; a number of fragments of these figures have recently been found in the “pockets” of the nave vaulting, where they had been thrown after the destruction of the reredos. Torrigiano’s bronze effigy of Margaret of Richmond in the south aisle of the same chapel is a very skilful but too realistic portrait, apparently taken from a cast of the dead face and hands. Another terra-cotta effigy in the Rolls chapel is also, from internal evidence, attributed to the same able Florentine. Another talented Florentine sculptor, Benedetto da Maiano, was invited to England by Cardinal Wolsey to make his tomb; of this only the marble sarcophagus now exists and has been used to hold the body of Admiral Nelson in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Another member of the same family, named Giovanni, was the sculptor of the colossal terra-cotta heads of the Caesars affixed to the walls of the older part of Hampton Court Palace.

During the troublous times of the Reformation sculpture, like the other arts, continued to decline. Of 17th-century monumental effigies that of Sir Francis Vere (d. 1607) in the north transept at Westminster is one of the best, though its design—a recumbent effigy overshadowed by a slab covered with armour, upborne by four kneeling figures of men-at-arms—is almost an exact copy of the tomb of Engelbert II. of Vianden-Nassau. The finest bronze statues of this century are those of Charles Villiers, duke of Buckingham (d. 1634), and his wife at the northeast of Henry VII.’s chapel. The effigy of the duke, in rich armour of the time of Charles I., lies with folded hands in the usual mediaeval pose. The face is fine and well modelled and the casting very good. The allegorical figures at the foot are caricatures of the style of Michelangelo, and are quite devoid of merit, but the kneeling statues of the duke’s children are designed with grace and pathos. A large number of very handsome marble and alabaster tombs were erected throughout England during the 17th century. The effigies are poor and coarse, but the rich architectural ornaments are effective and often of beautiful materials, alabaster being mixed with various richly coloured marbles in a very skilful way. Nicholas Stone (d. 1647), who worked under the supervision of Inigo Jones, appears to have been the chief English sculptor of his time. The De Vere and Villiers monuments are usually attributed to him. One of the best public monuments of London is the bronze equestrian statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross, which was overthrown and hidden during the protectorate of Cromwell, but replaced at the Restoration in 1660. It is very nobly modelled and was produced under Italian influence by a French sculptor called Hubert Le Soeur (d. 1670). The standing bronze statue of James II. behind the Whitehall banqueting room, very poorly designed but well executed, was the work of Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), a native of Holland, who was chiefly famed for his extraordinary skill in carving realistic fruit and flowers in pear and other white woods. Many rich and elaborate works of his exist at Trinity College, Oxford, at Cambridge, Chatsworth, and several other places in England. In the early part of the 18th century he worked for Sir Christopher Wren, and carved the elaborate friezes of the stalls and screens in St Paul’s Cathedral and in other London churches.

During the 18th century English sculpture was mostly in the hands of Flemish and other foreign artists, of whom Roubiliac (1693-1762), Scheemakers (1691-1773), and Rysbrack (1694-1770) were the chief. The ridiculous custom of representing Englishmen of the 18th and 19th centuries in the toga or in the armour of an ancient Roman was fatal alike to artistic merit and eikonic truth; and when, as was often the case, the periwig of the Georgian period was added to the costume of a Roman general the effect is supremely ludicrous. Nollekens (1737-1823), a pupil of Scheemakers, though one of the most popular sculptors of the 18th century, was a man of very little real ability. John Bacon (1740-1799) was in some respects an abler sculptor. John Flaxman (1753-1826) was in England the chief initiator of the classical revival. For many years he worked for Josiah Wedgwood, the potter, and designed for him an immense number of vases covered with delicate cameo-like reliefs. Many of these, taken from antique gems and sculpture, are of great beauty, though hardly suited to the special necessities of fictile ware. Flaxman’s large pieces of sculpture are of less merit, but some of his marble reliefs are designed with much spirit and classic purity. His illustrations in outline to the poems of Homer, Aeschylus, and Dante, based on drawings on Greek vases, have been greatly admired, but they are unfortunately much injured by the use of a thicker outline on one side of the figures,—an unsuccessful attempt to give a suggestion of shadow. Flaxman’s best pupil was Baily (1788-1867), chiefly celebrated for his nude marble figure of Eve.

During the first half of the 19th century the prevalence of a cold lifeless pseudo-classic style was fatal to individual talent, and robbed the sculpture of England of all real vigour and spirit. Francis Chantrey (1782-1841) produced a great quantity of sculpture, especially sepulchral monuments, which were much admired in spite of their very limited merits. Allan Cunningham and Henry Weekes worked in some cases in conjunction with Chantrey, who was not wanting in technical skill, as is shown by his clever marble relief of two dead woodcocks. John Gibson (1790-1866) was perhaps after Flaxman the most successful of the English classic school, and produced some works of real merit. He strove eagerly to revive the polychromatic decoration of sculpture in imitation of the circumlitio of classical times. His Venus Victrix, shown at the exhibition in London of 1862 (a work of about six years earlier), was the first of his coloured statues which attracted much attention. The prejudice, however, in favour of white marble was too strong, and both the popular verdict and that of other sculptors were strongly adverse to the “tinted Venus.” The fact was that Gibson’s colouring was timidly applied: it was a sort of compromise between the two systems, and thus his sculpture lost the special qualities of a pure marble surface, without gaining the richly decorative effect of the polychromy either of the Greeks or of the mediaeval period. The other chief sculptors of the same very inartistic period were Banks, the elder Westmacott (who modelled the Achilles in Hyde Park), R. Wyatt (who cast the equestrian statue of Wellington, lately removed from London), Macdowell, Campbell, Marshall, and Bell.

During the last hundred years a large number of honorary statues have been set up in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Hall and Abbey, and in other public places in London. Most of these, though modelled as a rule with some scholastic accuracy, are quite dull and spiritless, and, whilst free from the violently bad taste of such men as Bernini or Roubiliac, they lack the force and vigorous originality which go far to redeem what is offensive in the sculpture of the 17th and 18th centuries. The modern public statues of London and elsewhere are as a rule tamely respectable and quite uninteresting. One brilliant exception is the Wellington monument in St Paul’s Cathedral, probably the finest plastic work of modern times. It was the work of Alfred Stevens (1817-1875), a sculptor of the highest talent, who lived and died almost unrecognized by the British public. The commission for this monument was given to Stevens after a public competition; and he agreed to carry it out for £20,000,—a quite inadequate sum, as it afterwards turned out. The greater part of his life Stevens devoted to this grand monument, constantly harassed and finally worn out by the interference of Government, want of money, and other difficulties. Though he completed the model, Stevens did not live to see the monument set up,—perhaps fortunately for him, as it has been placed in a small side chapel, where the effect of the whole is utterly destroyed, and its magnificent bronze groups hidden from view. The monument consists of a sarcophagus supporting a recumbent bronze effigy of the duke, over which is an arched marble canopy of late Renaissance style on delicately enriched shafts. At each end of the upper part of the canopy is a large bronze group, one representing Truth tearing the tongue out of the mouth of Falsehood, and the other Valour trampling Cowardice under foot (see fig. 8). The two virtues are represented by very stately female figures modelled with wonderful beauty and vigour; the vices are two nude male figures treated in a very massive way. The whole is composed with great skill and largeness of style. The vigorous strength and sculpturesque nobility of these groups recall the style of Michelangelo, but they are far from being a mere imitation of him or any other master. Stevens’s work throughout is original and has a very distinct character of its own. He also designed an equestrian statue of the duke to stand on the summit of the monument, but in its present cramped position there is not sufficient room for this. Owing to the many years he spent on this one work Stevens did not produce much other sculpture. In Dorchester House, Park Lane, there is some of his work, especially a very noble mantelpiece supported by nude female caryatids in a crouching attitude, modelled with great largeness of style. He also designed mosaics to fill the spandrels under the dome of St Paul’s. The value of Stevens’s work is all the more conspicuous from the feebleness of most of the sculpture of his contemporaries.

In the present generation there are some signs of the development of a better state of the plastic arts. A bronze statue of an Athlete struggling with a Python, by Sir Frederick Leighton, is a work of great merit, almost worthy to rank with the best examples of any period, and remarkable for a profound knowledge of human anatomy (see fig. 9). Unfortunately the real cire perdue process for metal casting is seldom practised in England, and this statue, as well as all other bronze works produced in England, suffers much from the disagreeable surface which results from the rude method of forming the moulds in sand. The colossal bronze lions in Trafalgar Square, designed by Sir Edwin Landseer, are a melancholy example of this. France.— During the 12th and 13th centuries the sculpture of France was, on the whole, the finest in the world, and was there used in the greatest profusion. The façades of large cathedrals were completely covered with sculptured reliefs and thick-set rows of statues in niches. The whole of the front was frequently one huge composition of statuary, with only sufficient purely architectural work to form a background and frame for the sculptured figures. A west end treated like that of Wells cathedral, which is almost unique in England, is not uncommon in France. Even the shafts of the doorways and other architectural accessories were covered with minute sculptured decoration,—the motives of which were often, especially during the 12th century, obviously derived from the metal-work of shrines and reliquaries studded with rows of jewels. The west façade of Poitiers cathedral is one of the richest examples; it has large surfaces covered with foliated carving and rows of colossal statues, both seated and standing, reaching high up the front of the church. Of the same century (the 12th), but rather later in date, is the very noble sculpture on the three western doors of Chartres cathedral, with fine tympanum reliefs and colossal statues attached to the jamb-shafts of the openings (see fig. 10).

These latter figures, with their exaggerated height and the long straight folds of their drapery, are designed with great skill to assist and not to break the main upward lines of the doorways. The sculptors have willingly sacrificed the beauty and proportion of each separate statue for the sake of the architectonic effect of the whole façade.

The heads, however, are full of nobility, beauty, and even grace, especially those that are softened by the addition of long wavy curls, which give relief to the general stiffness of the form. The sculptured doors of the north and south aisles of Bourges cathedral are fine examples of the end of the 12th century, and so were the west doors of Notre Dame in Paris till they were hopelessly injured by “restoration.” The early sculpture at Bourges is specially interesting from the existence in many parts of its original coloured decoration.

In France, as in England, the 13th century was the golden age of sculpture; while still keeping its early dignity and subordination to its architectural setting, the sculpture reached a very high degree of graceful finish and even sensuous beauty. Nothing could surpass the loveliness of the angel statues round the Parisian Sainte Chapelle, and even the earlier work on the façade of Laon cathedral is full of grace and delicacy. Amiens cathedral is especially rich in sculpture of this date,—as, for example, the noble and majestic statues of Christ and the Apostles at the west end; the sculpture on the south transept of about 1260-70, of more developed style, is remarkable for dignity combined with soft beauty. The noble row of kings on the west end of Notre Dame at Paris has, like the earlier sculpture, been ruined by “restoration,” which has robbed the statues of both their spirit and their vigour. To the latter years of the 13th century belong the magnificent series of statues and reliefs round the three great western doorways of the same church, among which are no less than thirty-four life-sized figures. On the whole, the single statues throughout this period are finer than the reliefs with many figures. Some of the statues of the Virgin and Child are of extraordinary beauty, in spite of their being often treated with a certain mannerism,—a curved pose of the body, which appears to have been copied from ivory statuettes in which the figure followed the curve of the elephant’s tusk. The north transept at Rheims is no less rich: the central statue of Christ is a work of much grace and nobility of form; and some nude figures—for example, that of St Sebastian—show a knowledge of the human form which was very unusual at that early date. Many of these Rheims statues, like those by Torell at Westminster, are quite equal to the best work of Niccola Pisano. The abbey church of St Denis possesses the largest collection of French 13th-century monumental effigies, a large number of which, with supposed portraits of the early kings, were made during the rebuilding of the church in 1264; some of them appear to be “archaistic” copies of older contemporary statues.

In the 14th century French sculpture began to decline, though much beautiful plastic work was still produced. Some of the reliefs on the choir screen of Notre Dame at Paris belong to this period, as does also much fine sculpture on the transepts of Rouen cathedral and the west end of Lyons. At the end of this century an able sculptor from the Netherlands, called Claux Sluter, executed much fine work, especially at Dijon, under the patronage of Philip the Bold, for whose newly founded Carthusian monastery in 1399 he sculptured the great “Moses fountain” in the cloister, with six life-sized statues of prophets in stone, painted and gilt in the usual mediaeval fashion. Not long before his death in 1411 Sluter completed a very magnificent altar tomb for Philip the Bold, now in the museum at Dijon. It is of white marble, surrounded with arcading, which contains about forty small alabaster figures representing mourners of all classes, executed with much dramatic power. The recumbent portrait effigy of Philip in his ducal mantle with folded hands is a work of great power and delicacy of treatment.

The latter part of the 15th century in France was a time of transition from the mediaeval style, which had gradually been deteriorating, to the more florid and realistic taste of the Renaissance. To this period belong a number of rich reliefs and statues on the choir-screen of Chartres cathedral. Those on the screen at Amiens are later still, and exhibit the rapid ad vance of the new style. Fig. 11 shows a statuette in the costume of the end of the 15th century, a characteristic example of the later mediaeval method of treating saints in a realistic way.

In the 16th century Italian influence, especially that of Benvenuto Cellini, was paramount in France. Jean Goujon (d. 1572) was the ablest French sculptor of the time; he combined great technical skill and refinement of modelling with the florid and affected style of the age. His nude figure of Diana reclining by a Stag, now in the Louvre, is a graceful and vigorous piece of work, superior in sculpturesque breadth to the somewhat similar bronze relief of a nymph by Cellini. Between 1540 and 1552 Goujon executed the fine monument at Rouen to Duke Louis de Brézé, and from 1555 to 1562 was mainly occupied in decorating the Louvre with sculpture. One of the most pleasing and graceful works of this period, thoroughly Italian in style, is the marble group of the Three Graces bearing on their heads an urn containing the heart of Henry II., executed in 1560 by Germain Pilon for Catherine de’ Medici. The monument of Catherine and Henry II. at St Denis, by the same sculptor, is an inferior and coarser work. Maître Ponce, probably the same as the Italian Ponce Jacquio, chiselled the noble monument of Albert of Carpi (1535), now in the Louvre. Another very fine portrait effigy of about 1570, a recumbent figure in full armour of the duke of Montmorency, preserved in the Louvre, is the work of

Barthélemy Prieur. François Duquesnoy of Brussels (1594-1644), usually known as Il Fiamingo, was a clever sculptor, thoroughly French in style, though he mostly worked in Italy. His large statues are very poor, but his reliefs in ivory of boys and cupids are modelled with wonderfully soft realistic power and graceful fancy.

No sculptor of any great merit appears to have arisen in France during the 17th century, though some, such as the two Coustous, had great technical skill. Pierre Puget(1622-1694) produced vigorous but coarse and tasteless work, such as his Milo devoured by a Lion.

Other sculptors of the time were Simon Guillain,

François and Michel Anguier, and Chas. Ant. Coyze-vox (1640-1720), the last a sculptor of Lyons who produced some fine portrait busts.

Fig. 12 shows a group by Clodion, whose real name was Claude Michel (c. 1745-1814).

He worked largely in terra-cotta, and modelled with great spirit and invention, though in the sensual unsculpturesque manner prevalent in his time.

In the following century Jean Antoine Houdon (1740- 1828), a sculptor of most exceptional power, produced' some works of the highest merit at a time when the plastic ' arts had reached a very low ebb. His standing colossal statue of S. Bruno in S. Maria degli Angeli at Rome is a most noble and stately piece of portraiture, full of commanding dignity and expression. His seated statue of Voltaire in the foyer of the Théâtre Français, though sculpturesque in treatment, is a most striking piece of lifelike realism. Houdon may in fact be regarded as the precursor of the modern school of French sculpture of the better sort. About the middle of the 18th century a revolution was brought about in the style of sculpture by the suddenly revived taste for antique art. A period of dull pseudo-classicism succeeded, which in most cases stifled all original talent and reduced the plastic arts to a lifeless form of archaeology. Regarded even as imitations the works of this period are very unsuccessful: the sculptors got hold merely of the dry bones not of the spirit of classic art; and their study of the subject was so shallow and unintelligent that they mostly picked out what was third-rate for special admiration and ignored the glorious beauty of the best works of true Hellenic art. Thus in sculpture, as in painting and architecture, a study which might have been stimulating and useful in the highest degree became a serious hindrance to the development of modern art, and this not only in France but in the other countries of Europe; in France, however, the victories of Napoleon I. and his arrogant pretension to create a Gaulish empire on the model of that of ancient Rome caused the taste for pseudo-Roman art to be more pronounced than elsewhere. Among the first sculptors of this school were Antoine Chaudet (1763-1810) and Joseph Bosio (1769-1845). The latter was largely employed by Napoleon I.: he executed with some ability the bronze spiral reliefs round the column of the Place Vendôme and the statue of Napoleon on the top, and also modelled the classical quadriga on the triumphal arch in the Place du Carrousel. Jacques Pradier of Geneva (1790-1852) produced the Chained Prometheus of the Louvre and the Niobe group (1822). He possessed great technical ability, but aimed in most of his works at a soft sensuous beauty which is specially unsuited to sculpture. François Rude (1784-1855) worked in a style modelled on Graeco-Roman sculpture treated with some freedom. His bronze Mercury in the Louvre is a clever work, but his statues of Marshal Ney in the Luxembourg Gardens and of General Cavaignac (1847) in the cemetery of Montmartre are conspicuously bad. The reliefs on the pediment of the Panthéon are by Pierre Jean David of Angers (1789-1856); his early works are of dull classic style, but later in life he became a realist and produced the most unsculpturesque results. A bronze statue of a Dancing Fisher-lad modelled by François Joseph Duvet, now in the Luxembourg collection, is an able work of the genre class. Other French sculptors who were highly esteemed in their time were Ottin, Courtet, Simart, Etex, and Carpeaux. The last was an artist of great ability, and produced an immense number of clever but often very offensive statues. He obtained the highest renown in France, and was a typical example of the sad degradation of taste which prevailed under the rule of Napoleon III.

The existing schools of French sculpture are by far the most important in the world. Technical skill and intimate knowledge of the human form are possessed by several living sculptors of France to a degree which has probably never been surpassed, and some of them produce works of very great power, beauty, and originality. Many of their works have a similar fault to that of one class of French painters: they are much injured by an excess of sensual realism; in many cases nude statues are simply life-studies with all the faults and individual peculiarities of one model. Very unsculpturesque results are produced by treating a statue as a representation of a naked person,— one, that is, who is obviously in the habit of wearing clothes,—a very different thing from the purity of the ancient Greek treatment of the nude. Thus the great ability of many French sculptors is degraded to suit the taste of the voluptuary. An extravagance of attitude and an undignified arrangement of the figures do much to injure some of the large groups which are full of technical merit, and executed with marvellous anatomical knowledge. This is specially the case with much of the sculpture that is intended to decorate the buildings of Paris. The group of nude dancers by Carpeaux outside the new opera-house is a work of astonishing skill and prurient imagination, utterly unsculpturesque in style and especially unfitted to decorate the comparatively rigid lines of a building. The egotism of modern French sculptors will not allow them to accept the necessarily subordinate reserve which is so necessary for architectonic sculpture. Other French works, on the other hand, err in the direction of a sickly sentimentalism, or a petty realism, which is fatal to sculpturesque beauty. The real power and merits of the modern French school make these faults all the more conspicuous. Germany.— Till the 12th century sculpture in Germany continued to be under the lifeless influence of Byzantium, tempered to some extent by an attempt to return to classical models. This is seen in the bronze pillar reliefs and other works produced by Bishop Bernward after his visit to Rome (see Metal-work, vol. xvi. p. 77). Hildesheim, Cologne, and the whole of the Rhine provinces were the most active seats of German sculpture, especially in metal, till the 12th century. Many remarkable pieces of bronze sculpture were produced at the end of that period, of which several specimens exist. The bronze font at Liége, with figure-subjects in relief of various baptismal scenes from the New Testament, by Lambert Patras of Dinant, cast about 1112, is a work of most wonderful beauty and perfection for its time; other fonts in Osnabrück and Hildesheim cathedrals are surrounded by spirited reliefs, fine in conception, but inferior in beauty to those on the Liége font. Fine bronze candelabra exist in the abbey church of Comburg and at Aix-la-Chapelle, the latter of about 1165. Merseburg cathedral has a strange realistic sepulchral figure of Rudolf of Swabia, executed about 1100; and at Magdeburg is a fine effigy, also in bronze, of Bishop Frederick (d. 1152), treated in a more graceful way. The last figure has a peculiarity which is not uncommon in the older bronze reliefs of Germany: the body is treated as a relief, while the head sticks out and is quite detached from the ground in a very awkward way. One of the finest plastic works of this century is the choir screen of Hildesheim cathedral, executed in hard stucco, once rich with gold and colours; on its lower part is a series of large reliefs of saints modelled with almost classical breadth and nobility, with drapery of especial excellence.

In the 13th century German sculpture had made considerable artistic progress, but it did not reach the high standard of France. One of the best examples is the “golden gate” of Freiburg cathedral, with sculptured figures on the jambs after the French fashion. The statues of the apostles on the nave pillars, and especially one of the Madonna at the east end (1260-70), possess great beauty and sculpturesque breadth. The statues both inside and outside Bamberg cathedral, of the middle of the 13th century, are nobly designed; and an equestrian statue of Conrad III. in the market-place at Bamberg, supported by a foliated corbel, exhibits startling vigour and originality, and is designed with wonderful largeness of effect, though small in scale. The statues of Henry the Lion and Queen Matilda at Brunswick, of about the same period, are of the highest beauty and dignity of expression. Strasburg cathedral, though sadly damaged by restoration, still possesses a large quantity of the finest sculpture of the 13th century. One tympanum relief of the Death of the Virgin, surrounded by the sorrowing Apostles, is a work of the very highest beauty, worthy to rank with the best Italian sculpture of even a later period. Of its class nothing can surpass the purely decorative carving at Strasburg, with varied realistic foliage studied from nature, evidently with the keenest interest and enjoyment.

Nuremberg is rich in good sculpture of the 14th century. The church of St Sebald, the Frauenkirche, and the west façade of St Lawrence are lavishly decorated with reliefs and statues, very rich in effect, but showing the germs of that mannerism which grew so strong in Germany during the 15th century. Of special beauty are the statuettes which adorn the “beautiful fountain,” executed by Heinrich der Balier (1385-1396), and richly decorated with gold and colour by the painter Rudolf. A number of colossal figures were executed for Cologne cathedral between 1349 and 1361, but they are of no great merit. Augsburg produced several sculptors of ability about this time; the museum possesses some very noble wooden statues of this school, large in scale and dignified in treatment. On the exterior of the choir of the church of Marienburg castle is a very remarkable colossal figure of the Virgin of about 1340-50. Like the Hildesheim choir screen, it is made of hard stucco and is decorated with glass mosaics. The equestrian bronze group of St George and the Dragon in the market-place at Prague is excellent in workmanship and full of vigour, though much wanting dignity of style. Another fine work in bronze of about the same date is the effigy of Archbishop Conrad (d. 1261) in Cologne cathedral, executed many years after his death. The portrait appears truthful and the whole figure is noble in style. The military effigies of this time in Germany as elsewhere were almost unavoidably stiff and lifeless from the necessity of representing them in plate armour; the ecclesiastical chasuble, in which priestly effigies nearly always appear, is also a thoroughly unsculpturesque form of drapery, both from its awkward shape and its absence of folds. Fig. 13 shows a characteristic example of these sepulchral effigies in slight relief. It is interesting to compare this with a somewhat similarly treated Florentine effigy, executed in marble at the beginning of the next century, but of very superior grace and delicacy of treatment (see fig. 16 below).

The 15th century was one of great activity and originality in the sculpture of Germany and produced many artists of very high ability. One speciality of the time was the production of an immense number of wooden altars and reredoses, painted and gilt in the most gorgeous way and covered with subject-reliefs and statues, the former often treated in a very pictorial style. Wooden screens, stalls, tabernacles, and other church-fittings of the greatest elaboration and clever workmanship were largely produced in Germany at the same time, and on into the 16th century. Jörg Syrlin, one of the most able of these sculptors in wood, executed the gorgeous choir-stalls in Ulm cathedral, richly decorated with statuettes and canopied work, between 1469 and 1474; his son and namesake sculptured the elaborate stalls in Blaubeuren church of 1493 and the great pulpit in Ulm cathedral. Veit Stoss of Nuremberg, though a man of bad character, was a most skilful sculptor in wood; he carved the high altar, the tabernacle, and the stalls of the Frauenkirche at Cracow, between 1472 and 1495. One of his finest works is a large piece of wooden panelling, nearly 6 feet square, carved in 1495, with central reliefs of the Doom and the Heavenly Host, framed by minute reliefs of scenes from Bible history. It is now in the Nuremberg town-hall. Wohlgemuth (1434-1519), the master of A. Dürer, was not only a painter but also a clever wood-carver, as was also Dürer himself (1471-1528), who executed a tabernacle for the Host with an exquisitely carved relief of Christ in Majesty between the Virgin and St John, which still exists in the chapel of the monastery of Landau. Dürer also produced miniature reliefs cut in boxwood and hone-stone, of which the British Museum (print room) possesses one of the finest examples. Adam Krafft (c. 1455-1507) was another of this class of sculptors, but he worked also in stone; he produced the great Schreyer monument (1492) for St Sebald’s at Nuremberg, —a very skilful though mannered piece of sculpture, with very realistic figures in the costume of the time, carved in a way more suited to wood than stone, and too pictorial in effect. He also made the great tabernacle for the Host, 80 feet high, covered with statuettes, in Ulm cathedral, and the very spirited “Stations of the Cross” on the road to the Nuremberg cemetery.

The Vischer family of Nuremberg for three generations were among the ablest sculptors in bronze during the 15th and 16th centuries. Hermann Vischer the elder worked mostly between 1450 and 1505, following the earlier mediaeval traditions, but without the originality of his son. Among his existing works the chief are the bronze font at Wittenberg church (1457) and four episcopal effigies in relief, dated from 1475 to 1505, in Bamberg cathedral; this church also contains a fine series of bronze sepulchral monuments of various dates throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. Hermann’s son Peter Vischer was the chief artist of the family; he was admitted a master in the sculptor’s guild in 1489, and passed the greater part of his life at Nuremberg, where he died in 1529. In technique few bronze sculptors have ever equalled him; but his designs are marred by an excess of mannered realism and a too exuberant fancy. His chief early work was the tomb of Archbishop Ernest in Magdeburg cathedral (1495), surrounded with fine statuettes of the apostles under semi-Gothic canopies; it is purer in style than his later works, such as the magnificent shrine of St Sebald at Nuremberg, a tall canopied bronze structure, crowded with reliefs and statuettes in the most lavish way. The general form of the shrine is Gothic, but the details are those of the 16th-century Italian Renaissance treated with much freedom and originality. Some of the statuettes of saints attached to the slender columns of the canopy are modelled with much grace and even dignity of form. A small portrait figure of Peter himself, introduced at one end of the base, is a marvel of clever realism: he has represented himself as a stout, bearded man, wearing a large leathern apron and holding some of the tools of his craft. In this work, executed from 1508 to 1519, Peter was assisted by his sons, as is recorded in an inscription on the base— “Petter Vischer, Purger zu Nürmberg, machet das Werck mit seinen Sunnen, und ward folbracht im Jar mdxix . . This gorgeous shrine is a remarkable example of the uncommercial spirit which animated the artists of that time, and of the evident delight which they took in their work. Dragons, grotesques, and little figures of boys, mixed with graceful scroll foliage, crowd every possible part of the canopy and its shafts, designed in the most free and unconventional way and executed with an utter disregard of the time and labour which were lavished on them. Other existing works by Peter Vischer and his sons are the Entombment relief, signed “P. V. 1522,” in the Aegidienkirche, the monument of Cardinal Albert (1525) in the church at Aschaffenburg, and the fine tomb of Frederick the Wise (1527) in the castle chapel at Wittenberg.

Next to Nuremberg, the chief centres of bronze sculpture were Augsburg and Lübeck. Innsbruck possesses one of the finest series of bronze statues of the first half of the 16th century, namely twenty-eight colossal figures round the tomb of the emperor Maximilian, which stands in the centre of the nave, representing a succession of heroes and ancestors of the emperor. The first of the statues which was completed cost 3000 florins, and so Maximilian invited the help of Peter Vischer, whose skill was greater and whose work less expensive than that of the local craftsmen. Most of them, however, were executed by sculptors of whom little is now known. They differ much in style, though all are of great technical merit. The finest (see fig. 14) is an ideal statue of King Arthur of Britain, in plate armour of the 14th or early 15th century, very remarkable for the nobility of the face and pose. That of Theodoric is also a very fine conception. Some of the portrait figures of the Hapsburgs are almost ludicrously realistic, and are disfigured by the ugly German armour of the time.

In the latter part of the 16th century the influence of the later Italian Renaissance becomes very apparent, and many elaborate works in bronze were produced, especially at Augsburg, where Hubert Gerhard cast the fine “Augustus fountain” in 1593, and Adrian de Vries made the “Hercules fountain” in 1599; both were influenced by the style of Giovanni di Bologna, as shown in his magnificent fountain at Bologna.

In the following century Andreas Schlüter of Hamburg (b. about 1662) produced smaller bronze reliefs and accessories of great merit. His colossal statue of Frederick III. on the bridge at Berlin is less successful. On the whole the 17th and 18th centuries in Germany, as in England, were periods of great decadence in the plastic art; little of merit was produced, except some portrait figures. In the second half of the 18th century there was a strong revival in sculpture, especially in the classic style; and since then Germany has produced an immense quantity of large and pretentious sculpture, mostly dull in design and second-rate in execution. Johann Gottfried of Berlin (1764-1850) finished a number of portrait figures, some of which are ably modelled, as did also Friedrich Tieck (1776-1851) and Christian Rauch (1777-1857); the works of Rauch are, however, mostly weak and sentimental in style, as, for example, his recumbent statue of Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg (1813) and his statues of Generals Bülow and Scharnhorst at Berlin. Friedrich Drake was the ablest of Rauch’s pupils, but he lived at a very unhappy period for the sculptor’s art. His chief work is perhaps the colossal bronze equestrian statue of King William of Prussia at Cologne. Albert Wolff was a sculptor of more ability; he executed the equestrian portrait of King Ernest Augustus at Hanover, and a Horseman attacked by a Lion now in the Berlin Museum. Augustus Kiss (1802-1865) produced the companion group to this, the celebrated Amazon and Panther in bronze, as well as the fine group of St George and the Dragon in a courtyard of the royal palace at Berlin. The St George and his horse are of bronze; the dragon is formed of gilt plates of hammered iron. Kiss worked only in metal. The bad taste of the first half of the present century is strongly shown by many of the works of Theodore Kalidè, whose Bacchanal sprawling on a Panther’s Back is a marvel of awkwardness of pose and absence of any feeling for beauty. Rietschel was perhaps the best German sculptor of this period, and produced work superior to that of his contemporaries, such as Haagen, Wichmann, Fischer, and Hiedel. Some revival of a better style is shown in some sculpture, especially reliefs, by Hähnel, whose chief works are at Dresden. Schwanthaler (1802-1848), who was largely patronized by King Louis of Bavaria, studied at Rome and was at first a feeble imitator of antique classic art, but later in life he developed a more romantic and pseudo-mediaeval style. By him are a large number of reliefs and statues in the Glyptothek at Munich and in the Walhalla, also the colossal but feeble bronze statue of Bavaria, in point of size one of the most ambitious works of modern times. Since the beginning of the second half of the century the sculpture of Germany has made visible progress, and several living artists have produced works of merit and originality, far superior to the feeble imitations of classic art which for nearly a century destroyed all possible vigour and individuality in the plastic productions of most European countries. Spain.— In the early medieeval period the sculpture of northern Spain was much influenced by contemporary art in France. From the 12th to the 14th century many French architects and sculptors visited and worked in Spain. The cathedral of Santiago de Compostella possesses one of the grandest existing specimens in the world of late 12th-century architectonic sculpture; this, though the work of a native artist, Mastei Mateo, is thoroughly French in style; as recorded by an inscription on the front, it was completed in 1188. The whole of the western portal with its three doorways is covered with statues and reliefs, all richly decorated with colour, part of which still remains. Round the central arch are figures of the twenty-four elders, and in the tympanum a very noble relief of Christ in Majesty between Saints and Angels. As at Chartres, the jamb-shafts of the doorways are decorated with standing statues of saints,—St James the elder, the patron of the church, being attached to the central pillar. These noble figures, though treated in a somewhat rigid manner, are thoroughly subordinate to the main lines of the building. Their heads, with pointed beards and a fixed mechanical smile, together with the stiff drapery arranged in long narrow folds, recall the Aeginetan pediment sculpture of about 500 b.c. This appears strange at first sight, but the fact is that the works of the early Greek and the mediaeval Spaniard were both produced at a somewhat similar stage in two far distant periods of artistic development. In both cases plastic art was freeing itself from the bonds of a hieratic archaism, and had reached one of the last steps in a development which in the one case culminated in the perfection of the Phidian age, and in the other led to the exquisitely beautiful yet simple and reserved art of the end of the 13th and early part of the 14th century,—the golden age of sculpture in France and England.

In the 14th century the silversmiths of Spain produced many works of sculpture of great size and technical power. One of the finest, by a Valencian called Peter Bernec, is the great silver retable at Gerona cathedral. It is divided into three tiers of statuettes and reliefs, richly framed in canopied niches, all of silver, partly cast and partly hammered.

In the 15th century an infusion of German influence was mixed with that of France, as may be seen in the very rich sculptural decorations which adorn the main door of Salamanca cathedral, the façade of S. Juan at Valladolid, and the church and cloisters of S. Juan de los Reyes at Toledo, perhaps the most gorgeous examples of architectural sculpture in the world. The carved foliage of this period is of especial beauty and spirited execution; realistic forms of plant-growth are mingled with other more conventional foliage in the most masterly manner. The very noble bronze monument of Archdeacon Pelayo (d. 1490) in Burgos cathedral was probably the work of Simon of Cologne, who was also architect of the Certosa at Miraflores, 2 miles from Burgos. The church of this monastery contains two of the most magnificently rich monuments in the world, especially the altar-tomb of King John II. and his queen by Gil de Siloe,—a perfect marvel of rich alabaster canopy-work and intricate under-cutting. The effigies have little merit.

In the early part of the 16th century a strong Italian influence superseded that of France and Germany, partly owing to the presence in Spain of the Florentine Torri-giano and other Italian artists. The magnificent tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella in Granada cathedral is a fine specimen of Italian Renaissance sculpture, somewhat similar in general form to the tomb of Sixtus IV. by Ant. Pollaiuolo in St Peter’s, but half a century later in the style of its detail. It looks as if it had been executed by Torri-giano, but the design which he made for it is said to have been rejected. Some of the work of this period, though purely Italian in style, was produced by Spanish sculptors,—for example, the choir reliefs at Toledo cathedral, and those in the Colegio Mayor at Salamanca by Alonso Berruguete, who obtained his artistic training in Rome and Florence. Esteban Jordan, Gregorio Hernandez, and other Spanish sculptors produced a large number of elaborate retables, carved in wood with subjects in relief and richly decorated in gold and colours. These sumptuous masses of polychromatic sculpture resemble the 15th-century retables of Germany more than any Italian examples, and were a sort of survival of an older mediaeval style. Alonso Cano (1600-1667), the painter, was remarkable for clever realistic sculpture, very highly coloured and religious in style. Montanes, who died in 1614, was one of the ablest Spanish sculptors of his time. His finest works are the reliefs of the Madonna and Saints on an altar in the university church of Seville, and in the cathedral, in the chapel of St Augustine, a very nobly designed Conception, modelled with great skill. In later times Spain has produced little or no sculpture of any merit.

Italy.— Till the great revival of plastic art took place in the middle of the 13th century, the sculpture of Italy was decidedly inferior to that of other more northern countries. Much of it was actually the work of northern sculptors,—as, for example, the very rude sculpture on the façade of S. Andrea at Pistoia, executed about 1186 by Gruamons and his brother Adeodatus. Fig. 15 shows a relief by Antelami of Parma of the year 1178. Unlike the sculpture of the Pisani and later artists, these early figures are thoroughly secondary to the architecture they are designed to decorate; they are evidently the work of men who were architects first and sculptors in a secondary degree. After the 13th century the reverse was usually the case, and, as at the west end of Orvieto cathedral, the sculptured decorations are treated as being of primary importance, —not that the Italian sculptor-architect ever allowed his statues or reliefs to weaken or damage their architectural surroundings, as is unfortunately the case with much modern sculpture. In southern Italy, during the 13th century, there existed a school of sculpture resembling that of France, owing probably to the Norman occupation. The pulpit in the cathedral of Ravello, executed by Nicolaus di Bartolomeo di Foggia in 1272, is an important work of this class; it is enriched with very noble sculpture, especially a large female head crowned with a richly foliated coronet, and combining lifelike vigour with largeness of style in a very remarkable way. The bronze doors at Monreale, Pisa, and elsewhere, which are among the chief works of plastic art in Italy during the 12th century, are described in Monreale and Metal-work. The history of Italian sculpture of the best period is given to a great extent in the separate articles on the Pisani (q.v. ) and other Italian artists. During the 13th century Rome and the central provinces of Italy produced very few sculptors of ability, almost the only men of note being the Cosmati (see Rome, vol. xx. p. 835).

During the 14th century Florence and the neighbouring cities were the chief centres of Italian sculpture, and there numerous sculptors of successively increasing artistic power lived and worked, till in the 15th century Florence had become the aesthetic capital of the world, and reached a pitch of artistic wealth and perfection which Athens alone in its best days could have rivalled. The similarity between the plastic arts of Athens in the 5th or 4th century b.c. and of Florence in the 15th century is not one of analogy only. Though free from any touch of copyism, there are many points in the works of such men as Donatello, Luca della Robbia, and Vittore Pisanello which strongly recall the sculpture of ancient Greece, and suggest that, if a sculptor of the later Phidian school had been surrounded by the same types of face and costume as those among which the Italians lived, he would have produced plastic works closely resembling those of the great Florentine masters. In the 14th century, in northern Italy, various schools of sculpture existed, especially at Verona and Venice, whose art differed widely from the contemporary art of Tuscany; but Milan and Pavia, on the other hand, possessed sculptors who followed closely the style of the Pisani. The chief examples of the latter class are the magnificent shrine of St Augustine in the cathedral of Pavia, dated 1362, and the somewhat similar shrine of Peter the Martyr (1339), by Balduccio of Pisa, in the church of St Eustorgio at Milan, both of white marble, decorated in the most lavish way with statuettes and subject reliefs. Many other fine pieces of the Pisan school exist in Milan. The well-known tombs of the Scaliger family at Verona show a more native style of design, and in general form, though not in detail, suggest the influence of transalpine Gothic. In Venice the northern and almost French character of much of the early 15th-century sculpture is more strongly marked, especially in the noble figures in high relief which decorate the lower story and angles of thedoge’s palace; these are mostly the work of a Venetian named Bartolomeo Bon. A magnificent marble tympanum relief by Bon has recently been added to the South Kensington Museum; it has a noble colossal figure of the Madonna, who shelters under her mantle a number of kneeling worshippers; the background is enriched with foliage and heads, forming a “Jesse tree,” designed with great decorative skill. The cathedral of Como, built at the very end of the 15th century, is decorated with good sculpture of almost Gothic style, but on the whole rather dull and mechanical in detail, like much of the sculpture in the extreme north of Italy. A large quantity of rich sculpture was produced in Naples during the 14th century, but of no great merit either in design or in execution. The lofty monument of King Robert (1350), behind the high altar of S. Chiara, and other tombs in the same church are the most conspicuous works of this period. Very beautiful sepulchral effigies in low relief were produced in many parts of Italy, especially at Florem. The tomb of Lorenzo Acciaioli (see fig. 16), in the Certosa near Florence is a fine example of about the year 1400, which has absurdly been attributed to Donatello. Rome was very remarkable during the 14th century for its extraordinary poverty in the production of sculpture. The clumsy effigies at the north-east of S. Maria in Trastevere are striking examples of the degradation of the plastic art there about the year 1400; and it was not till nearly the middle of the century that the arrival of able Florentine sculptors, such as Filarete, Mino da Fiesole, and the Pollaiuoli, initiated a brilliant era of artistic activity, which, however, for about a century continued to depend on the presence of sculptors from Tuscany and other northern provinces. It was not, in fact, till the period of full decadence had begun that Rome itself produced any notable artists.

For the great sculptors of Florence during the 14th and 15th centuries we refer the reader to the separate biographical notices on the subject. The Pisani and Arnolfo del Cambio were succeeded by Orcagna and others, who carried on and developed the great lessons these pioneers of the Renaissance had taught. Ghiberti, the sculptor of the world-famed bap tistery gates; Donatello, the master of delicate relief and dignified realism see fig. 17); Luca della Robbia, with his classic purity of style and sweetness of expression, came next in ordr. Unsensual beauty elevated by religious spirit was atained in the highest degree by Mino da Fiesole, the two Rossellini, Benedetto da Maiano, and other sculptors of Florere. Two of the noblest equestrian statues the world has probably ever seen are the Gattamelata statue at Padua by Dontello and the statue of Colleoni at Venice by Verrocchio and Leopardi (see fig. 18). A third, which was probably of equal eauty, was modelled in clay by Leonardo da Vinci, but it no longer exists. Finally came Michelangelo, who raised the sculpture of the modern world to its highest pitch of magnificence, and at the same time sowed the seeds of its rapidly approaching decline; the head of his David (see fig. 19) is a work of unrivalled force and dignity. His rivals and imitators, Baccio Bandinelli, Giacomo della Porta, Momlupo, Ammanati, Vincenzo de’ Rossi, and others, copied and exaggerated his faults without possessing a touch of his gigantic genius. In other parts of Italy, such as Pavia, the traditions of the 15th century lasted longer, though gradually fading. The statuary and relics which make the Certosa near Pavia one of the most gorgeous buildings in the world are free from the influence of Michelangelo, which at Florence and Rome was overwhelming. Though much of the sculpture was begun i the second half of the 15th century, the greater part was not executed till much later. The magnificent tomb of the founder, Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, was not completed till about 1560, and is a gorgeous example of the stle of the Renaissance grown weak from excess of richness and from loss of the simple purity of the art of the 15th century. Everywhere in this wonderful building the falt is the same; and the growing love of luxury and display, which was the curse of the time, is reflected in the plastic decorations of the whole church. The old religious spirit had died out and was succeeded by unbelief or by n affected revival of paganism. Monuments to ancient .bmans, such as those to the two Plinys on the façade of 6mo cathedral, or “heroa” to unsaintly mortals, such as that erected at Rimini by Sigismondo Pandolfo in honor of Isotta, grew up side by side with shrines and churches dedicated to the saints. We have seen how the youthful vigour of the Christian faith vivified for a time the dr bones of expiring classic art, and now the decay of this une belief brought with it the destruction of all that was most valuable in mediaeval sculpture. Sculpture like the other arts became the bond-slave of the rich and ceased to be the natural expression of a whole people. Though for a long time in Italy great technical skill continued to xist, the vivifying spirit was dead, and at last a dull schlasticism or a riotous extravagance of design became the deading characteristics.

The 16th century was one of transition to this state of degradation, but nevertheless produced many sculptors of great ability who were not wholly crushed by the declining taste of their time. John of Douay (1524-1608), usually known as Giovanni da Bologna, one of the ablest, lived and worked almost entirely in Italy. His bronze statue of Mercury flying upwards, in the Uffizi, one of his finest works, is full of life and movement. By him also is the Carrying off of a Sabine Woman in the Loggia de’ Lanzi. His great fountain at Bologna, with two tiers of boys and mermaids, surmounted by a colossal statue of Neptune, a very noble work, is composed of architectural features combined with sculpture, and is remarkable for beauty of proportion. He also cast the fine bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo de’ Medici at Florence and the very richly decorated west door of Pisa cathedral, the latter much injured by the over-crowding of its ornaments and the want of sculpturesque dignity in the figures; it is a feeble copy of Ghiberti’s noble production. One of Giovanni’s best works, a group of two nude figures fighting, is now lost. A fine copy in lead existed till recently in the front quadrangle of Brasenose College, Oxford, of which it was the chief ornament (see fig. 20). In 1881 it was sold for old lead by the master and fellows of the college, and was immediately melted down by the plumber who bought it— a quite irreparable loss, as the only other existing copy is very inferior; the destruction was an utterly inexcusable act of vandalism. The sculpture on the western façade of the church at Loreto and the elaborate bronze gates of the Santa Casa are works of great technical merit by Girolamo Lombardo and his sons, about the middle of the 16th century. Benvenuto Cellini (1500- 1569), though in the main a poor sculptor, produced one work of great beauty and dignity,—the colossal bronze Perseus at Florence (see fig. 21). His large bust of Cosimo de’ Medici in the Bargello is mean and petty in style. A number of very clever statues and groups in terra - cotta were modelled by Antonio Begarelli of Modena (d. 1565), and were enthusiastically admired by Michelangelo; the finest are a Pietà in S. Maria Pomposa and a large Descent from the Cross in S. Francesco, both at Modena. The colossal bronze seated statue of Julius III. at Perugia, cast in 1555 by Vincenzo Danti, is one of the best portrait-figures of the time.

The chief sculptor and architect of the 17th century was the Neapolitan Bernini (1598-1680), who, with the aid of a large school of assistants, produced an almost incredible quantity of sculpture of the most varying degrees of merit and hideousness. His chief early group, the Apollo and Daphne in the Borghese casino, is a work of wonderful technical skill and delicate high finish, combined with soft beauty and grace, though too pictorial in style. In later life Bernini turned out work of brutal coarseness, designed in a thoroughly unsculpturesque spirit. The churches of Rome, the colonnade of St Peter’s, and the bridge of S. Angelo are crowded with his clumsy colossal figures, half draped in wildly fluttering garments,—perfect models of what is worst in the plastic art. And yet his works received perhaps more praise than those of any other sculptor of any age, and after his death a scaffolding was erected outside the bridge of S. Angelo in order that people might walk round and admire his rows of feeble half-naked angels. For all that, Bernini was a man of undoubted talent, and in a better period of art would have been a sculptor of the first rank; many of his portrait-busts are works of great vigour and dignity, quite free from the mannered extravagance of his larger sculpture. Stefano Maderna (1571-1636) was the ablest of his contemporaries; his clever and much admired statue, the figure of the dead S. Cecilia under the high altar of her basilica, is chiefly remarkable for its deathlike pose and the realistic treatment of the drapery. Another clever sculptor was Alessandro Algardi of Bologna (15981-1654).

In the next century at Naples Queirolo, Corradini, and Sammartino produced a number of statues, now in the chapel of S. Maria de’ Sangri, which are extraordinary examples of wasted labour and ignorance of the simplest canons of plastic art. These are marble statues enmeshed in nets or covered with thin veils, executed with almost deceptive realism, perhaps the lowest stage of tricky degradation into which the sculptor’s art could possibly fall. In the 18th century Italy was naturally the headquarters of the classical revival, which spread thence throughout most of Europe. Canova (1757-1822), a Venetian by birth, who spent most of his life in Rome, was perhaps the leading spirit of this movement, and became the most popular sculptor of his time. His work is very unequal in merit, mostly dull and uninteresting in style, and is occasionally marred by a meretricious spirit very contrary to the true classic feeling. His group of the Three Graces, the Hebe, and the very popular Dancing-Girls, copies of which in plaster disfigure the stairs of countless modern hotels and other buildings on the Continent, are typical examples of Canova’s worst work. Some of his sculpture is designed with far more of the purity of antique art; his finest work is the colossal group of Theseus slaying a Centaur at Vienna (see fig. 22). Canova’s attempts at Christian sculpture are singularly unsuccessful, as, for example, his pretentious monument to Pope Clement XIII. in St Peter’s at Rome, that to Titian at Venice, and Alfieri’s tomb in the Florentine church of S. Croce. Fiesole has in this century produced one sculptor of great talent, named Bastianini. He worked in the style of the great 15th-century Florentine sculptors, and followed especially the methods of his distinguished fellow-townsman Mino da Fiesole. Many of Bastianini’s works are hardly to be distinguished from genuine sculpture of the 15th century, and in some cases enormous prices have been paid for them under the supposition that they were mediaeval productions. These frauds were, however, perpetrated without Bastianini’s knowledge.

Scandinavia, &c.— By far the greatest sculptor of the classical revival was Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), an Icelander by race, whose boyhood was spent at Copenhagen, and who settled in Rome in 1797, when Canova’s fame was at its highest point. He produced an immense quantity of groups, single statues, and reliefs, chiefly Greek and Roman deities, many of which show more of the true spirit of antique art than has been attained by any other modern sculptor. His group of the Three Graces is for purity of form and sculpturesque simplicity far superior to that of the same subject by Canova. No sculptor’s works have ever been exhibited as a whole in so perfect a manner as Thorwaldsen’s; they are collected in a fine building which has been specially erected to contain them at Copenhagen; he is buried in the courtyard. The Swedish sculptors Tobias Sergell and Johann Bystrom belonged to the classic school; the latter followed in Thorwaldsen’s footsteps. Another Swede named Fogelberg was famed chiefly for his sculptured subjects taken from Norse mythology. W. Bissen and Jerichau of Denmark have produced some able works,—the former a fine equestrian statue of Frederick VII. at Copenhagen, and the latter a very spirited and widely known group of a Man attacked by a Panther.

Within recent years Russia, Poland, and other countries have produced many sculptors, most of whom belong to the modern German or French schools. Rome is still a favourite place of residence for the sculptors of all countries, but can hardly be said to possess a school of its own. The sculptors of America almost invariably study at one of the great European centres of plastic art, especially in Paris. Hiram Powers of Cincinnati, who produced one work of merit, a nude female figure, called the Greek Slave, exhibited in London in 1851, lived and worked in Florence. A number of living American sculptors now reside both there and in Rome.

Technical Methods of the Sculptor.

The production of bronze statues by the cire perdue process is described in the article Metal-work, vol. xvi. p. 72; this is now but little practised out of Paris.

For the execution of a marble statue the sculptor first models a preliminary sketch on a small scale in clay or wax. He then, in the case of a life-sized or colossal statue, has a sort of iron skeleton set up, with stout bars for the arms and legs, fixed in the pose of the future figure. This is placed on a stand with a revolving top, so that the sculptor can easily turn the whole model round and thus work with the light on any side of it. Over this iron skeleton well-tempered modelling-clay is laid and is modelled into shape by the help of wood and bone tools; without the ironwork a soft clay figure, if more than a few inches high, would collapse with its own weight and squeeze the lower part out of shape. While the modelling is in progress it is necessary to keep the clay moist and plastic, by squirting water on to it with a sort of garden syringe capped with a finely perforated rose. When the sculptor is not at work the whole figure is kept wrapped up in damp cloths. A modern improvement is to mix the modelling-clay, not with water, but with stearin and glycerin; this, while keeping the clay soft and plastic, has the great advantage of not being wet, and so the sculptor avoids the chill and consequent risk of rheumatism which follow from a constant manipulation of wet clay. When the clay model is finished it is cast in plaster. A “piece-mould” is formed by applying patches of wet plaster of Paris all over the clay statue in such a way that they can be removed piecemeal from the model, and then be fitted together again, forming a complete hollow mould. The inside is then rinsed out with plaster and water mixed to the consistency of cream till a skin of plaster is formed all over the inner surface of the mould, and thus a hollow cast is made of the whole figure. The “piece-mould” is then taken to pieces and the casting set free. If skilfully done by a good formatore or moulder the plaster cast is a perfect facsimile of the original clay, very slightly disfigured by a series of lines showing the joints in the piece-mould, the sections of which cannot be made to fit together with absolute precision. Many sculptors have their clay model cast in plaster before the modelling is quite finished, as they prefer to put the finishing touches on the plaster cast,—good plaster being a very easy and pleasant substance to work on.

The next stage is to copy the plaster model in marble. The model is set on a large block called a “scale stone,” while the marble for the future statue is set upon another similar block. The plaster model is then covered with a series of marks, placed on all the most salient parts of the body, and the front of each “scale stone ” is covered with another series of points, exactly the same on both stones. An ingenious instrument called a pointing machine, which has arms ending in metal points or “needles” that move in ball-socket joints, is placed between the model and the marble block. Two of its arms are then applied to the model, one touching a point on the scale stone while the other touches a mark on the figure. The arms are fixed by screws in this position, and the machine is then revolved to the marble block, and set with its lower needle touching the corresponding point on the scale stone. The upper needle, which is arranged to slide back on its own axis, cannot reach the corresponding point on the statue because the marble block is in the way; a hole is then drilled into the block at the place and in the direction indicated by the needle, till the latter can slide forward so as to reach a point sunk in the marble block exactly corresponding to the point it touched on the plaster mould. This process is repeated both on the model and on the marble block till the latter is drilled with a number of holes, the bottoms of which correspond in position to the number of marks made on the surface of the model. A comparatively un skilled scarpellino or “chisel-man” then sets to work and cuts away the marble till he has reached the bottoms of all the holes, beyond which he must not cut. The statue is thus roughly blocked out, and a more skilled scarpellino begins to work. Partly by eye and partly with the constant help of the pointing machine, which is used to give any required measurements, the workman almost completes the marble statue, leaving only the finishing touches to be done by the sculptor.

Among the ancient Greeks and Romans and in the mediaeval period it was the custom to give the nude parts of a marble statue a considerable degree of polish, which really suggests the somewhat glossy surface of the human skin very much better than the dull loaf-sugar-like surface which is left on the marble by modern sculptors. This high polish still remains in parts of the pedimental figures from the Parthenon, where, at the back, they have been specially protected from the weather. The Hermes of the Vatican Belvidere is a remarkable instance of the preservation of this polish. Michelangelo carried the practice further still, and gave certain parts of some of his statues, such as the Moses, the highest possible polish in order to produce high lights just where he wanted them; the artistic legitimacy of this may perhaps be doubted, and in weaker hands it might degenerate into mere trickery. It is, however, much to be desired that modern sculptors should to some extent at least adopt the classical practice, and by a slight but uniform polish remove the disagreeable crystalline grain from all the nude parts of the marble.

A rougher method of obtaining fixed points to measure from was occasionally employed by Michelangelo and earlier sculptors. They immersed the model in a tank of water, the water being gradually allowed to run out, and thus by its sinking level it gave a series of contour lines on any required number of planes. In some cases Michelangelo appears to have cut his statue out of the marble without previously making a model—a most marvellous feat of skill.

In modelling bas-reliefs the modern sculptor usually applies the clay to a slab of slate on which the design is sketched; the slate forms the background of the figures, and thus keeps the relief absolutely true to one plane. This method is one of the causes of the dulness and want of spirit so conspicuous in most modern sculptured reliefs. In the best Greek examples there is no absolutely fixed plane surface for the backgrounds. In one place, to gain an effective shadow, the Greek sculptor would cut below the average surface; in another he would leave the ground at a higher plane, exactly as happened to suit each portion of his design. Other differences from the modern mechanical rules can easily be seen by a careful examination of the Parthenon frieze and other Greek reliefs. Though the word “bas-relief” is now often applied to reliefs of all degrees of projection from the ground, it should, of course, only be used for those in which the projection is slight; “basso,” “mezzo,” and “alto rilievo” express three different degrees of salience. Very low relief is but little used by modern sculptors, mainly because it is much easier to obtain striking effects with the help of more projection. Donatello and other 15th-century Italian artists showed the most wonderful skill in their treatment of very low relief. One not altogether legitimate method of gaining effect was practised by some mediaeval sculptors: the relief itself was kept very low, but was “stilted” or projected from the ground, and then undercut all round the outline. A 15th-century tabernacle for the host in the Brera at Milan is a very beautiful example of this method, which as a rule is not pleasing in effect, since it looks rather as if the figures were cut out in cardboard and then stuck on.

The practice of most modern sculptors is to do very little to the marble with their own hands; some, in fact, have never really learnt how to carve, and thus the finished statue is often very dull and lifeless in comparison with the clay model. Most of the great sculptors of the Middle Ages left little or nothing to be done by an assistant; Michelangelo especially did the whole of the carving with his own hands, and when beginning on a block of marble attacked it with such vigorous strokes of the hammer that large pieces of marble flew about in every direction. But skill as a carver, though very desirable, is not absolutely necessary for a sculptor. If he casts in bronze by the cire perdue process he may produce the most perfect plastic works without touching anything harder than the modelling-wax. The sculptor in marble, however, must be able to carve a hard substance if he is to be master of his art. Unhappily some modern sculptors not only leave all manipulation of the marble to their workmen, but they also employ men to do their modelling, the supposed sculptor supplying little or nothing but his name to the work. In some cases sculptors who are neither one nor the other, but who suffer under an excess of popularity, are induced to employ aid of this kind on account of their undertaking more work than any one man could possibly accomplish,—a state of things which is necessarily very hostile to the interests of true art. As a rule, however, the sculptor’s scarpellino, though he may and often does attain the highest skill as a carver and can copy almost anything with wonderful fidelity, seldom develops into an original artist. The popular admiration tura , Florence, 1568, vol. i., and his Vite dei Pittοri, &c., ed. Milanesi, Florence, 1880; Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen, Leipsic, 1827-31; Dohme, Kunst und Künstler Italiens, Leipsic, 1879; Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, London (1865), Italian Sculptors (1868), and Hand-book of Italian Sculpture (1883); Robinson, Italian Sculpture, London, 1862; Grüner, Marmor · Bildwerke der Pisaner, Leipsic, 1858; Ferreri, L'Arco di S. Agostino, Pavia, 1832; Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, London, 1877, vol. iii.; Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Hist. of Painting in Italy, London, 1866, voL i.; Selvatico, Arch. e Scultura in Venezia, Venice, 1847; Ricci, Storia dell' Arch. in Italia, Modena, 1857-60; Street (Arundel Society), Sepulchral Monuments of Italy, 1878; Gozzini, Monumenti Sepolcrali della Toscana, Florence, 1819; De Montault, La Sculpture Religieuse à Rome, Rome, 1870—a French edition (with improved text) of Tosi and Becchio, Monumenti Sacri di Roma, Rome, 1842; Cavallucci and Molinier, Les Della Robbia, Paris, 1884; Cicognara, Monumenti di Venezia, Venice, 1838-40; Burges and Didron, Iconographie des Chapitaux du Palais Ducal à Venise, Paris, 1857; Richter, “Sculpture of S. Mark’s at Venice,” Macmillan's Mag., June 1880; Temanza, Vite degli Scultori Veneziani, Venice, 1778; Diedo and Zanotto, Monumenti di Venezia . Milan, 1839; Schulz, Denkmäler der Kunst in Unter-Italien, Dresden, 1860; Brinckmann, Die Sculptur von B. Cellini, Leipsic, 1867; Eug. Plon, Cellini, sa Vie &c. Paris, 1882; Moses and Cicognara, Works of Canova, London,

1824-28; Piroli, Fontana, and others, a series of engraved Plates of Canova's Works, s. l. et a.; Giulliot, Les Artistes en Espagne, Paris, 1870; Carderera y Solano, Iconegrafia Espanola, Siglo XI.-XVII., Madrid, 1855-64; Monumentos Arquitectonicos de Espana, published by the Spanish Government, 1859, and still in progress. for pieces of clever trickery in sculpture, such as the carving of the open meshes of a fisherman’s net, or a chain with each link free and movable, would perhaps be diminished if it were known that such work as this is invariably done, not by the sculptor, but by the scarpellino. Unhappily at the present day there is, especially in England, little appreciation of what is valuable in plastic art; there is probably no other civilized country where the state does so little to give practical support to the advancement of monumental and decorative sculpture on a large scale—the most important branch of the art—which it is hardly in the power of private persons to further.

Literature.— On the general history of Christian sculpture, see Agincourt, Histoire de l'Art, Paris, 1823; Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen-Âge, Paris. 1839-46; Cicognara, Storia della Scultura, Prato, 1823-44; Westmacott, Handbook of Sculpture, Edinburgh, 1864; Lübke, History of Sculpture, Eng. trans., London, 1872; Ruskin, Aratra Pentelici (six lectures on sculpture), Loudon, 1872; Viardot, Les Merveilles de la Sculpture, Paris, 1869; Arsenne and Denis, Manuel . . . du Sculpteur, Paris, 1858; Clarac, Musée de Sculpture, Paris, 1826-53; Demmin, Encyclopédie des Beaux-Arts plastiques, Paris, 1872-75, vol. iii.; Didron, Oeuvres de Bronze du Moyen-Âge, Paris, 1859; Fortnuin, Bronzes in the South Kensington Museum, 1877; Finochietti, Scultura in Legno, Florence, 1873; Anon., Ornati del Coro di S. Pietro de’ Cassinesi a Perugia, Rome, 1845. See also the lists of works given in the preceding pages, and those in the articles on individual sculptors and in that on Metal-work.